Re: “Students need a sexual assault support centre,” Dec. 1-7, 2011

I have a hard time telling this story. Up until this point, it has remained constrained within tiniest versions of the truth.

I read a letter in the Charlatan recently that struck me at the very centre of my core. It struck me in this burning, breathing place that I have yet to fully reach inside. I want to thank the anonymous person, first and foremost, for their letter. I want to let them know that it inspired me, and gave me power to write this down. Not empowerment, but real power. It has been much too long since I’ve felt that. So again, anonymous, thank you. You make me real.

I am a student at Carleton University, currently completing my bachelor in social work. I am visibly queer, and androgynous. I first came to Carleton in 2006 studying in a different program. Late one night, I was walking to my car after class. It was located in one of the furthest lots. I will never be able to convey the enormity of that night. So far since then I haven’t been able to tell the whole story.

I was gang raped by three men. There I said it. It’s not the first time that I say this. I actually say it, over and over again hoping that at any given moment it will become less real, or somehow change something. I was almost 20 then. I am almost 25 now.

Everyday feels like that day, in some small irrelevant way. Like, when I see a car that resembles the one from that night. Or, when I smell cologne that reminds me of that night. When I walk in the tunnels at school, or along the safe path that never feels safe to me. When people say rape jokes and think they are funny. Or, those moments when I am having sex and my body tenses up for no reason at all, and it hurts so much I have to tell my lover to stop. When I can’t have sex at all. Or, even simple things like . . . when I can’t get to sleep no matter how tired I am. Or, how when I do sleep all I can dream about is rape, violence, or this one reoccurring dream where I can’t stop watching myself stabbing myself with a kitchen knife until I bleed black.

In small irrelevant ways, these are my daily reminders. I don’t know how to explain what happened. Up until this point, I have only made the tiniest versions of the truth available surrounding what really happened that night. I don’t really know how to tell the whole story.

If it wasn’t for one professor in my seminar class who noticed that I stopped showing up, who took me by the hand and walked me to health and counselling, I’m not sure if I’d be here. I will forever be grateful to her for seeing me struggling and reaching out. She didn't have to, but she did. There were days where I couldn’t get out of bed. I stopped going to class. I stopped living. I was existing . . . floating in the world, a cold, numb, and empty person.

Health and counselling was the reason I quit Carleton that year. I was trivialized, scrutinized, interrogated. I did not feel validated. They made me feel like what I was telling them wasn’t true. That it was so unbelievable that someone like me could be raped.

I was targeted because I was queer, but the reality of that violence lives inside of me. I was targeted to correct my queerness. I needed to know what it felt like to be ‘with a real man.’ I needed to be 'taught a lesson.’ That’s what they told me anyway, over and over again, laughing. I know I don’t look like a conventional “woman,” but I was raped, and my body knows this. I quit Carleton that year, I had no choice but to.

I lost a generous scholarship. I lost the ability to walk around without feeling like someone is right behind me. I know what happened to me could happen anywhere. I know that it does. But the fact that it happened on our campus gets under my skin in the deepest of places. People live at this school. This is their home.

A few years ago, I was sitting at a coffee shop with a friend. I was just working at the time, not attending school, when she told me that group of women were starting a support line at Carleton. The news both terrified and excited me. She told me I should get an interview to take part in the training. After a few days of contemplation, I did.

I spent over 30 hours being trained to work on that support line. The next year, I was able to find enough strength within myself to go back to Carleton in social work. I love my program, and everyday it is a fight to do what I love and negotiate that obliterated place inside me. Joining that group of students at Carleton fighting for the sexual assault support centre, in a way gave me pieces of myself back. I was not empowered, but felt real power. Here was a community of people, with stories like mine, trying to take back their lives and their space.

A sexual assault support centre is needed on our campus, especially for stories like mine. A sexual assault support centre would be a space for survivors to find ourselves again, and build capacity for community but also a place to resist rape culture and educate others of the reality of violence on our campuses. We are not an isolated incident, sexual violence is everywhere. It is happening at our school.

I am not a tragic story, and I refuse to let Carleton blame me for my own rape. I am a person, I have relationships, friendships and live my life like anyone else here. Rape is systemic, it is a tool, it is prevalent on every campus, and we need to do something pro-active to change this.

We need a space for survivors to go to feel validated, and believed. As a community who has historically been pathologized, we know the peer/feminist/anti-oppression support model works. And no, these are not a group of people who think they are counsellors. However, they are a group of people who know their stuff, and have the knowledge of what resources are available for certain experiences, especially ones who do not fit the 'mainstream,’ stories like mine. 

I don’t do work with the coalition anymore, but I will forever be grateful for the space they provided me, and for the fact that they were there when I needed them. I will forever be supportive of their efforts for a sexual assault support centre on campus, and the work they do to validate stories that sound like mine.

We need to keep fighting for this centre. There are people who need it. People like me.

Note: This social work student, who is gender non-conforming, spoke on the condition of anonymity.